You hit the nail on the head. That’s the first problem with all genre-gatekeeping arguments like the ones lobbed against FF13. In essence, they all boil down to “This is a bad game because I didn’t like it. Games I like have X, Y, and Z. This game did not have X or Y, and it did Z very poorly. Therefore it is a bad…

I’ve never understood why that is a problem. I loved the linear approach in Final Fantasy X. Several other RPGs take the same basic approach - Xenosaga, for one. 

The characters in 13 spend most of the game on the run from the military, which results in a constant sense of forward momentum. This means there's no side quests and very little time spent in towns, but that doesn't really make the game any more or less linear. Every Final Fantasy is linear, you just notice it more…

Lightning isn’t Cloud.

And really, it did innovate. The mechanics are better and more complicated (in a good way), and the guns are better. It didn’t remake the genre, but it’s even more fun to play. I say that at just 8 hours in or so, and haven’t unlocked a lot.

You are not the only one. All of these click bait articles like the one Kotaku wrote above are just such edgy hot takes and I roll my eyes when they talk about the humor and how we’ve all matured beyond it. I still think bonerfarts is funny. But yes it’s borderlands and it’s a different place with different characters…

As a person that dropped BL2 because I hated the shooting so much, I can say that after taking the plunge on BL3 and spending a little over 6 hours with it, the shooting is much better. Enemies actually react to getting shot and melee’d now, they’re nowhere near as bullet spongy as they were in BL2 and limbs and shit…

I would have hugely enjoyed it if the bad guys took a few shots from our hunters at the end of the cut scenes and showed they feared us a little. Like let us see our hero catch up and start taking pot shots at them or something.

Hmm, and I only ever played 1, 2, and 1.5 solo.  But, then, I rarely played any of the Diablos with other people, either.

In other news, the plot is pretty predictable.